When my expectations are exactly fulfilled, I feel that something uncanny has happened.

Pain narrows consciousness; pleasure blurs it.

When Medusa looks in the mirror, she sees the Lady of Sorrows.

My passions have never jumped out of the fireplace and set fire to the carpet.

Retirement requires the invention of a new hedonism, not a return to the hedonism of youth

The sewing machine joins what the scissors have cut asunder, plus whatever else comes in its path.

Clothes make a statement. Costumes tell a story.

The laughter of the aphorism is sometimes triumphant, but seldom carefree.

'Be faithful to your roots' is the liberal version of 'Stay in your ghetto.'

Every day begins with an act of courage and hope: getting out of bed.

Totem poles and wooden masks no longer suggest tribal villages but fashionable drawing rooms in New York and Paris.

If you aren't hurting after a good workout then obviously you haven't done something right

The most important thing is to read as much as you can, like I did. It will give you an understanding of what makes good writing and it will enlarge your vocabulary.

For each person I lost I found a new layer of grief to cover myself with, and each time I tried to bring something of their essence into my own being - be it unconditional love, kindness and piety.

The spectacles of experience through them you will see clearly a second time.

Too often we are Christians by assumption, manipulation or instruction, rather than Christians by regeneration.

The law is agnostic about truth.

I knew dating the son of Satan would turn out badly

I think that the existence of Beethoven is remarkable, but I do not bristle at the suggestion that this event had a low probability given the initial state of the universe.

Only small minds want always to be right.

Philistine must have originally meant, in the mind of those who invented the nickname, a strong, dogged, unenlightened opponent of the chosen people, of the children of the light.